HeelsBlog will be taking a little break here to enjoy the holidays at home.  But I thought I'd take a shot at summing up the fall semester.  We've got a men's basketball team that is playing like world-beaters, a women's team hanging around the top 5, a football team headed back to a bowl and recruiting well, and a baseball team that is ranked #7 in the preseason.  I will be back sometime around the UNCW game on the 28th, though I may be posting incidental articles here and there.  Hopefully in the new year I can see the Lady Tar Heels in person.  Also, I'll be making the road trip to see the football Heels play in Charlotte on the 30th and come back for the basketball game against Cleveland State that night.  We've got a lot to look forward to as Tar Heel fans, and a lot to be thankful for.  Merry Christmas from HeelsBlog!

Caulton Tudor, famous (to me, at least) for being able to settle in nicely on one side of an issue, then only weeks later take the other side, will probably want to turn off his email inbox for a little while after today's column about hometown boy Shavlik Randolph.  I suppose it took something like this happening to a local kid for someone to see how K over-recruits, just to deprive other schools of a certain player (see Michael Thompson, Ricky Price, et al), effectively ruining that player's career.  I agree with Tudor on this one.  Randolph could have been a star just about anywhere else.

Brian Payton, a running back from Fort Wayne, Indiana by way of Fork Union Military Academy, has committed to the Tar Heels.  Reading the above-linked article, he seems like a class-A guy.  What does this mean for Toney Baker?  I don't know.  I have zero inside information, but Baker will be a great catch wherever he goes.